The District of Tuggeranong is one of the original eighteen districts of the Australian Capital Territory used in land administration. The district is subdivided into divisions (suburbs), sections and blocks and is the southernmost town centre of Canberra, the capital city of Australia. The district comprises nineteen suburbs and occupies 117 square kilometres (45 sq mi) to the east of the Murrumbidgee River.

The name Tuggeranong is derived from a Ngunnawal expression meaning "cold place".[3] From the earliest colonial times, the plain extending south into the centre of the present-day territory was referred to as Tuggeranong.

Cave paintings and Aboriginal artifacts discovered in the area confirm that the Tuggeranong region has been occupied by the original inhabitants, the Ngunnawal people, for over 21,000 years.[4]

The first Europeans arrived in the Canberra region in 1820 and a year later, a third expedition led by Charles Throsby reached the Murrumbidgee River near the present-day Pine Island and the valley[6][7] now occupied by the Tuggeranong district. In 1823 Joseph Wild was employed by Brigade Major John Ovens and Captain Mark Currie to guide them to the Murrumbidgee. They travelled south along the river and named the area now known as Tuggeranong Isabella's Plain in honour of Governor Brisbane's infant daughter. Unable to cross the river near the current site of Tharwa, they continued on to the Monaro Plains.

The last expedition in the region was undertaken by Allan Cunningham in 1824. Cunningham's reports verified that the region was suitable for grazing, and the settlement of the Limestone Plains followed immediately thereafter.

The first authorised settler was James Murdoch. In 1824 he was offered a land grant on a small plain known by the natives as 'Togranong' meaning 'cold plains'. He took up the grant in 1827. Lanyon station was established in 1835 and originally owned by James Wright, his brother William and John Lanyon. Wright bought the property from Lanyon, who had only remained in Australia for three years. In 1838, Wright commenced the building of the homestead, which he named after his partner, Lanyon. The homestead was built with the strength of a fort to withstand the attacks of bushrangers.[8] Wright sold to the Cunningham family in 1847.[9] In 1835 Thomas Macquoid, then Sheriff of the New South Wales Supreme Court, bought Tuggeranong station then known as Waniassa property (sic). The rural depression of 1840 hit hard and Macquoid committed suicide, fearing bankruptcy when he lost a civil suit brought by one William Henry Barnes.[10][11] His son took over the estate and creditors allowed him to continue to operate it until it was sold by the Macquoid family in 1858 to the Cunningham family, owners of the neighbouring Lanyon property.[12] They renamed Waniassa to Tuggranong. The whole area was part of the Tuggeranong parish in the late nineteenth century. Tuggranong homestead was rebuilt by the Cunningham family in 1908. In 1917 it was resumed by the Commonwealth Government for military purposes. The Cunningham family remained at Lanyon until 1926. Charles Bean, together with his staff, wrote the first two volumes of the twelve volume official history of Australia's involvement in World War I at the homestead from 1919 to 1925. The Tuggeranong property was leased as a grazing property by the McCormack family from 1927 to 1976.[13]

In 1973, the third of the new towns planned for Canberra was inaugurated at Tuggeranong on 21 February. It was originally planned to house between 180,000 to 220,000 people. Planning for the new town had begun in 1969. The first families moved into the suburb of Kambah in 1974. The fifth Canberra fire station opened at Kambah in 1979 to service the new developing satellite city.[14]

The district is a set of contiguous residential suburbs consolidated around Lake Tuggeranong, in addition to vast pastoral leases that extend south of the suburbs of Banks, Conder and Gordon. The boundaries of the district are constrained by the Murrumbidgee River to the west, the border with the state of New South Wales to the south and east, and pastoral leases that mark the district's boundary to the north, including the remnants of the Tuggeranong Homestead, and to the north-west.

Lake Tuggeranong was created in 1987 by the construction of a dam on a tributary of the Murrumbidgee River. On the edge of the lake are a number of community facilities, including Lake Tuggeranong College, a school catering to years 11 and 12 (16 – 18 years old); a library, which is part of the ACT Library and Information Services, a community centre, and the Tuggeranong Arts Centre.

At the 2016 census, there were 85,154 people in the Tuggeranong district, of these 48.9 per cent were male and 51.1 per cent were female. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 2.5 per cent of the population, which was lower than the national average, but higher than the territory average. The median age of people in the Tuggeranong district was 37 years, which was marginally lower than the national median of 38 years. Children aged 0–14 years made up 19.6 per cent of the population and people aged 65 years and over made up 12.2 per cent of the population. Of people in the area aged 15 years and over, 50.5 per cent were married and 12.1 per cent were either divorced or separated.[1]

Population growth in the Tuggeranong district between the 2001 census and the 2006 census was 0.85 per cent; in the five years to the 2011 census, the population decreased by 0.25 per cent; and in the five years to the 2016 census, the population decreased by 2.0 per cent. When compared with total population growth of Australia for the same periods, being 5.79 per cent, 8.32 per cent and 8.81 respectively, population growth in Tuggeranong district was significantly lower than the national average.[16][17][15][1] The median weekly income for residents within the Tuggeranong district was significantly higher than the national average, and slightly lower than the territory average.[1]

At the 2016 census, the proportion of residents in the Tuggeranong district who stated their ancestry as Australian or Anglo-Saxon exceeded 70 per cent of all residents (national average was 62.3 per cent). In excess of 57 per cent of all residents in the Tuggeranong district nominated a religious affiliation with Christianity at the 2016 census, which was marginally lower than the national average of 57.7 per cent. Meanwhile, at the census date, compared to the national average, households in the Tuggeranong district had a lower than average proportion (17.5 per cent) where two or more languages are spoken (national average was 22.2 per cent); and a higher proportion (81.4 per cent) where English only was spoken at home (national average was 72.7 per cent).[1]

A 1975 map of the proposed suburb names in Tuggeranong shows that many more suburbs were planned, and that the eventual layout of Tuggeranong is very different from what the planners were thinking. It was proposed that residential development would occur west of the Murrumbidigee River, a corridor that is subsequently free of urban development. Suburbs planned (but not built, or had their names changed) were:[18]